[New-Poetry] MacArthur Poets

Tue Aug 7 14:14:51 EDT 2007

To the issue that another drawback of our times is that only certai9n types
of poetry show up in major bookstores (Emmanuel's good point):

Of course, the other problem being out of the mainstream is distribution. I
came of poetry age in rural areas in the 60s. I would find out about poets
through what people I respected told me. Then what the poets wrote (as the
Statements section in the back of Donald Allen's anthology when Creeley and
others told the reader to read Pound, and Pound lead in all directions, even
when he didn't). Discovery was non-mainstream as was distribution. I was
given an anthology, then when I went thru used book stores (both in small
towns and big cities) would check out more of those included and by presses
I had read about and bought what I could (which was more than I could
afford, being poor). It's so much easier today to hear about and read types
of poetry that hit us hard and sure. Web-magazines, primarily, are one of
the places I learn about new writers. Then I can google them, uncover their
"associates" (whatever), and another lovely reticulating matrix leads out
from there. Then there's Small Press Distribution and Amazon at fingertip.
(I don't even know how you got books that weren't in front of you--in stores
or libraries--in the 1960s. I cannot remember ordering anything at the
time.)

I don't mean to be myopically sanguine about the condition for those not
santicified. It is tough seeing good work ignored and what we consider
superficial displays of period style lauded. (But when has that been new?
Vide Pope's The Dunciad.) But we for the most part chose the way we are, to
follow what we felt to be the trail to a lifetime's writing. We couldn't see
falsifying that for cheap gains. Those who chose to try to become another
Hass or whoever have their rewards; I don't think that they are "of a kind"
with mine.

I feel less bad for the youngster in the middle of nowhere who looks for
what he or she doesn't even know is there than I once did. Now so much is
available, especially for readers and writers, that only few would have
difficulty discovering works that might significantly impact them. Even
through the 70s it was difficult, until Bookslinger and a few other
distribution possibilities like the used Am Here Books catalogues. (And
listserves like this should not go unmentioned.)

The situation is only really hard on writers like Bernadette Mayer (from
whom so many poets have learned so much and while they sit on
professorships, she sits in her kitchen), or maybe those cast out of
positions where they might have had some influence on the awareness of
others ("publish or perish" means publish in certain presses" as well), etc.
For those who change directions to meet the style du jour, we're better off
without them, to sound terribly American, but think of what their praise or
criticism or opinions and stories would mean to you if they had stayed and
you felt you had to listen. (They would embarrass  me . . . for them.)

Anyway, if some of us got too public, we'd probably have Bill O'Reilly on
our ass, and there's is no intelligently civil way I can imagine dealing
with that man while being kind at the same time.

-----Original Message-----
From: Sigauke, Emmanuel [mailto:new-poetry-bounces at wiz.cath.vt.edu] On
Behalf Of Sigauke, Emmanuel 
Sent: Monday, August 06, 2007 8:56 PM
To: NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News &amp;Views
Subject: RE: [New-Poetry] MacArthur Poets

So I I guess these are the books to browse in Borders/B&N and let the
smaller guys get all the sales. 

  _____  

From: new-poetry-bounces at wiz.cath.vt.edu on behalf of AlMaginnes at aol.com
Sent: Mon 8/6/2007 6:13 PM
To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] MacArthur Poets

Skip is exactly right. My only gripe about these awards is that they too
often go to the guy just like the guy who won it last year. The MacArthur is
a nice chunk of change and it would be nice to see it go to someone who
could really use the money to live and get some work done instead of someone
who's just going to buy another Roth and another three months in Italy with
it.

I've never bought a book because the writer won a MacArthur, but I would
like to think that some truly extraordinary work came about because of the
writer receiving a MacArthur. 

  _____  

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